Tweet
Car rejection?
Hi everyone,
Just hoping to get some advice on a car rejection claim.
Bought a used Fiat 500X 1.0 Firefly on HP (Northridge Finance) in Feb 2025. Mileage was 34k. I have a stamped service record proving the supplying dealer fully serviced the car right before I picked it up.
Fast forward 10 months to Dec 2025. At 43k miles (so just 9k miles driven), the engine completely failed. The main dealer diagnosed it as a timing chain failure. Before this, they tried replacing a camshaft sensor which cost £1,000 with parts and labour, but that didn't fix the issue, and the car is still sitting in that garage with an unpaid bill. They are now quoting £2.5k for the chain but admitted to me it's a "speculative" fix.
I sent a formal rejection to the finance company arguing a timing chain failing at 43k means the car wasn't reasonably durable.
Northridge are refusing to accept the rejection without an independent inspection proving it's an inherent fault and not maintenance neglect (even though I sent them the service stamp from the point of sale proving it wasn't my fault).
I have a separate policy with Opteven (covers up to £1k) and this runs out in 2 days. They temporarily refused the initial garage claim because of lack of evidende and want the engine stripped down to prove the root cause before they authorise any payment. This is after the Fiat garage had provided them with a report detailing the causal part and then put the engine back together so they could move the car out the workshop for the time being
I contacted an independent engineer for a CPR Part 35 report. He quoted £750. He also explicitly told me in an email that the Fiat 1.0 Firefly timing chains are known to fail between 40k and 70k miles, especially if they had patchy service history before I bought it (there was a 16-month gap before my purchase, but again, the dealer serviced it right before handing it to me).
The kind of catch is the £750 is just for the engineer's time. The main dealer will also charge me labour to strip the engine so the engineer can actually look at it.
Just hoping if anyone could advise what to do?
Do I just pay the £750 plus the strip-down labour and add it to my final claim against Northridge?
Since the engineer has already put in writing that this is a known manufacturing defect occurring at this exact mileage, can I use that to force the finance company to drop the inspection demand or pay for it upfront?
Any advice on how to handle the main dealer who wants their £1k for the failed sensor repair while I wait for all this to play out?
Any guidance would be massively appreciated!
Just hoping to get some advice on a car rejection claim.
Bought a used Fiat 500X 1.0 Firefly on HP (Northridge Finance) in Feb 2025. Mileage was 34k. I have a stamped service record proving the supplying dealer fully serviced the car right before I picked it up.
Fast forward 10 months to Dec 2025. At 43k miles (so just 9k miles driven), the engine completely failed. The main dealer diagnosed it as a timing chain failure. Before this, they tried replacing a camshaft sensor which cost £1,000 with parts and labour, but that didn't fix the issue, and the car is still sitting in that garage with an unpaid bill. They are now quoting £2.5k for the chain but admitted to me it's a "speculative" fix.
I sent a formal rejection to the finance company arguing a timing chain failing at 43k means the car wasn't reasonably durable.
Northridge are refusing to accept the rejection without an independent inspection proving it's an inherent fault and not maintenance neglect (even though I sent them the service stamp from the point of sale proving it wasn't my fault).
I have a separate policy with Opteven (covers up to £1k) and this runs out in 2 days. They temporarily refused the initial garage claim because of lack of evidende and want the engine stripped down to prove the root cause before they authorise any payment. This is after the Fiat garage had provided them with a report detailing the causal part and then put the engine back together so they could move the car out the workshop for the time being
I contacted an independent engineer for a CPR Part 35 report. He quoted £750. He also explicitly told me in an email that the Fiat 1.0 Firefly timing chains are known to fail between 40k and 70k miles, especially if they had patchy service history before I bought it (there was a 16-month gap before my purchase, but again, the dealer serviced it right before handing it to me).
The kind of catch is the £750 is just for the engineer's time. The main dealer will also charge me labour to strip the engine so the engineer can actually look at it.
Just hoping if anyone could advise what to do?
Do I just pay the £750 plus the strip-down labour and add it to my final claim against Northridge?
Since the engineer has already put in writing that this is a known manufacturing defect occurring at this exact mileage, can I use that to force the finance company to drop the inspection demand or pay for it upfront?
Any advice on how to handle the main dealer who wants their £1k for the failed sensor repair while I wait for all this to play out?
Any guidance would be massively appreciated!
, the fiat dealership wasn't on the list of approved repairers but this was after we'd already tried 2 local garages (who were on the approved list) who both had a look and said they were unable to locate the issue. They fitted the cam belt sensor and carried out diagnostics beforehand to clear all of the warning lights that had come on the dashboard.
Comment